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Gossip Music Player
Avg 3.67 / 5
Total of 27 votes
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Last update: 11 Oct 2008 09:44 AM
Account: AltPremium
Location: Olympia, WA
Signed up: 03/21/05 04:27:48
Members: Beth Dittto - Vocals : Brace Paine - Guitar : Kathy Mendonca - Drums
Genre: A hotbed of punk, riot grrrl and queercore.
Influences:
AltSounds URL:http://www.altsounds.com/gossip
Website: http://www.dimmak.com/gossip/
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Biography
In the late 1990s, three youngsters called The Gossip brought the blues and gospel of their Arkansas roots to Olympia, WA, hotbed of punk, riot grrrl and queercore. All three - Beth Ditto, Kathy Mendonca, and Nathan Howdeschell had a lot to offer the already bursting-with-originality Olympia scene: Kathy played the best minimalist garage drums this side of Detroit, and with Nathan's raw and raucous blues guitar, the band would've been notable with any vocalist. But it was Beth Ditto's mournful, bluesy howl that shot the band into a league with other great punk/garage bands. Beth stripped her music down, but filled up every room and every fan's eardrum with her incredibly rich, Elvis-from-hell yowl. Soon, the band was opening for Sleater-Kinney, et al., and before long, The Gossip signed to Olympia's Kill Rock Stars label, releasing, to date, an EP and two full-lengths.
Now, Hollywood, CA's avant-punk-blues label, Dim Mak, is blessing you with a live album from this essential band. Undead in NYC, to be released Sept. 9, 2003, was recorded in a single night at New York's Knitting Factory in July 2002. Like most bands who draw their strength from simple music played with relentless power, The Gossip are meant to be seen onstage. Beth Ditto's vocals fill venues with an auditory tidal wave, and as a frontwoman, her bantering interaction with the audience is legendary. Famous for calling out the NME's sexism at a London show, and frequently removing her clothing for her own pleasure, Beth is bratty, funny, rude, sassy, always engaged and always engaging. Undead in NYC brings her commanding, live presence to record for the first time. Also featured is a cover of The Stooges' classic, "I Wanna be Your Dog," on which The Gossip are joined by GSL recording artists The Chromatics.
Dim Mak has numerous Gossip-related releases in the pipeline. Guitarist Nathan Howdeshell aka Brace Paine released an album in May of this year, Youth Controllerzzz, with his band Die Monitr Batss, and an album by his newest band, Deep Jail, will be out soon. Nathan also joins Beth Ditto in a new band called Cold War, which will release a record on Dim Mak tba. But of all The Gossip's upcoming projects, Undead In NYC is the best document of their spectacular talents.
- Tristin Laughter
Dim Mak Releases:
DM046: Gossip "Undead in NYC" LP/CD
Other releases by members of Gossip on Dim Mak:
DM041: Die Monitr Batss "Spread Your Legs Release the Batss" 7"
DM042: Die Monitr Batss "Youth Controllerzzz" CD
DM058: Deep Jail "Deep Threat" 12"/CD (TBA)
DM059: Cold War 12"/CD (TBA)
Press
Updated 3/13/05
FasterLouder.com
Gossip/Tracy and the Plastics- Real Damage
"Dim Mak Records have hit onto a winner with this idea. Two bands, two tracks each, one EP- The Real Damage EP. Gossip contributes initially with Left Out Now and Sleepers, followed by Tracy and the Plastics with Dawn Feather and Save Me Claude. Both bands dish out generous helpings of femme attitude, yet the sounds are conceived from very differing musical aesthetics. The former embodies the understated swagger and sexuality of '60s and '70s soul, backed by grinding, dark guitars and heavy-fisted blues rhythms. Conversely, Tracy and the Plastics throw forth a mouthful of ironic exaggerated monotone- barely penetrating a cascade of drum machine sound- discharged with punk fury..."
Click Here for Full Review
Updated 11/14/03
VIDEO LINKS
Jun 1, 2002 Gossip and Chromatics!!! Click PUNKCAST!
UNDEAD IN NYC REVIEWS
GOSSIP "UNDEAD IN NYC" streeted September 4, 2003
THE GOSSIP "UNDEAD IN NYC" album is at 125 in CMJ TOP 200 CHARTS!!!
LA ALTERNATIVE PRESS
"For the record," Gossip vocalist Beth Ditto told fans at New York Cityâs Knitting Factory last year when this live recording was taped, "Gossip are not garage rock - we are punk." There is something particularly punk about bootleg-quality recordings. But each component - guitar, vocals, drums - of The Gossip's swinging blues-punk is present here, accurately communicated and equally mixed. The energy of the band is not lost, as the three-piece rips through ten tracks in thirty minutes, with a reasonable helping of between-song banter for good measure. Itâs all just sort of tinny and a little muffled by the din of dancing, screaming fans - sort of like the sound at a live show. There are undoubtedly better ways to record this band playing live, but this may be about as accurate a depiction of The Gossip in a live setting as one is going to get without actually seeing the band play. Plainly: the Gossip rocks, and this record conveys as much.
ROCKET-FUEL
Gossip
Anna Giuliani
2003-10-12 ï
Seeing The Gossip for the first time is a rock'n'roll revelation: this trio is a white-hot runaway train of blues, punk and soul. Vocalist Beth Ditto growls her way through tough-as-shit riffs in sweaty (and often half-naked) glory. She's a gritty, Arkansas-bred girl who knows how to work a crowd. Recordings don't do justice to Dittoïs vocals and engaging banter or to guitarist Nathan Howdeschell's jagged guitar licks and Kathy Mendonca's minimalist drumming.
Recorded at NYC's Knitting Factory in July 2002, Undead in NYC serves up a raucous, 27-minute hunk of The Gossip's feverish, rip em' up attitude in lo-fi glory.
The show starts to pick up momentum on the second track with "Non Non Non" ("No No No" from this year's Movement); screams from the crowd rise above The Gossipïs characteristic driving, bass-less squall. Ditto belts it out fast & raw and slow & low -- all without one tiny bit of pretension. You want her to be your lover, your momma and your best friend. On ïDonït Make Wavesï (Movement), Howdeschellïs out-of-tune guitar gives the song an artier, though no less ass-kickinï, feel and Dittoïs deep, soulful voice rises to the occasion.
The kids kick out the jams on the garage-y ïGone Tomorrowï, from their first EP, despite Dittoïs pronouncement that ïfor the recordï The Gossip are not garage rock, theyïre punk.
Undead in NYC gets at the essence of the blues in a way that all those forty-year-old wankers with two thousand dollar guitars playing clubs with $9 drinks will never be able to. The Gossip are saviors of the seedy. And they play blues like it was meant to be played -- to a bunch of drunk folks packed into a bar like sardines.
OC WEEKLY
It's both brilliant and insane that heavy-gun-indie Dim Mak would put this out: the kids of America would do well to have their ears dirtied up a bit, but this recorded-to-answering-machine-tape-inside-the-soundpersonïs-colon live show is a big fat ball of mud to the head. And if this reviewer and former Germs tape trader knows one thing, itïs shitty live recordings. Young nubiles, prepare to get ugly: thereïs a pretty great album in here, but youïre gonna have to swallow hard to get to it. That said, the Gossip should have been the White Stripes, tooïtheyïre an alley-cat-mean guitar-and-drums set-up with Beth Ditto (punk rockïs Big Maybelle or Doris Allen, an Arkansas girl with a blues-y voice barreling right out of some shotgun shack) out front and a fireball live show. Now, the world is clogged with bands like this, but on this live recording, the Gossip (who were doing this early, if you keep score) blow through what Ditto calls ïgarage-rock bullshitï to an admirably unrehearsed...admirably rough, admirably pure 20-some minutes of rock & roll. These songs have all been released in studio version (novices start there), but you true fans buy this to get a little of the live fire to yourself. And there is one extra, a cover of ïI Wanna Be Your Dog.ï ... Ditto has had Iggyïs desperate, lonely gut-rattle in her voice since she picked up a mic, and it arcs out of the din behind her like lightning around a smokestack. Forget everyone else screaming and barking in the tape hissïjust listen to her.
Chris Ziegler
INTERVIEWS
LAW OF INERTIA
At first I was going to write a straightforward article. I was going to tell you about The Gossip, an Olympia-by-of-Arkansas garage rock band, who are so soulful and gusty that serious ass-shaking ensues whenever they play. I was going to let you know how the trio met in high school in Searcy, Arkansas, where students got bonus points for attending pro-life rallies. I was going to write about how in this small southern town full of jocks and rednecks, singer Beth Dittto grew into a queer and feminist dynamo, who is as sexy as she is fleshy. I would describe how Ditto's powerful vocals-equally suited for a Baptist church choir or the raunchiest punk club-revive both gospel and rock and roll in their most raw forms. I was going to illustrate using rock journalist metaphors, how the sultry Ditto make you feel like you've just downed a bottle of sweet Southern Comfort while the stripped down sound of Kathy Mendoncaïs drums and Nathan Howdeshell's four-string guitar generate that primal urge to smash the bottle into a million pieces. Finally, my article was going to impress upon the fact that none of the band's members are over twenty-four years old or technically trained musicians, yet already have two full-length albums and two Ep Ps, the last three on Kill Rock Stars, the label that introduced such lady rockers as Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney.
All of this is true, not the whole story. The story is of a journalist getting involved with her subjet. That line in Almost famous comes to mind, "Don't become friends with the band !". How about more than friends ? Does my involvment with a member of The Gossip make me Kate Hudson's Penny Lane, orworse, one other Bard-Aids ?
When I called the number I was given at the start of my alloted half-hour interview this past May, I eargerly anticipated Beth Ditto to answer the phone, and had questions specifically prepared for regarding feminism and queer politics. Instead, Nathan Howdeshell answered the phone in a soft Southern accent. Admittedly, every time I've seen The Gossip play I hadn't paid much attention to the band's sole male member as Ditto captivates the audience with such a powerful female presence. It's no surprise, then, that I've come away from their shows with a sence of their empowerment that a straight girl gets after rocking out in a throng of lesbians. However, talking with with Nathan-a straight male- immediately made me see the band outside of the bounds of its audience's sexual orientation. He even revealed to me that, "Beth doesn't even consider herself a lesbian. She consider herself a queer, like, she's dating a boy... she's queer, which means she can do whatever the fuck she wants." True, but after taking a peek at the hardcore sex pictorial featuring Ditto in a recent issue of the lesbian magazine On Our Backs, I realized that the boy she's dating is transexuel, albeit still a boy by my book.
Much like his band, Nathan is more than meets the eye : much more intelligent and thoughtful than most guys I've encountered in rock bands. Ten minutes into the conversatioin, Nathan and I were no longer talking about the Gossip. Discovering we were both "kids" (me :22, he :23), Nathan and I found a shared interest in writing. Right away Nathan promised to send me some of the zines he does. When I realized I was losing focus of the interview and chatting with Nathan as if I were on a first date, I asked Nathan the token question, "What are your band's influences ?" To my surprise, he was excited to talk about No Wave and how its "all out rawness" and lack of concern for chords and tuned guitar. "(We really) want our music to be abrasive and noisy but at the same time melodic." Nathan, who had been conducting phone interviews since 8 :30 that morning, told me than when asked to compare his band a lot of dumber journalists expect us to say the White Stripes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs." Instead Howdeshell would probably say esoteric bands like Bush Tetras And The Contortions.
In the background the phone kept ringing, which we ignored. As other journalists called for their interviews, I already flipped over mysixty-minute tape.
I realized then what it is that most journalists miss about The Gossip. Above their feminist/lesbian appeal, their part in the roots-rock revival, and Ditto's gospel voice, The Gossip are really punk. They are punk because they are young and they are raw. Thay are making art and noise and they are promote movement (Movement is also the title of their new album). This movement can be interpreted as dance, sex, or radicel politics.
The next day I got an email from Nathan : "I had severe insomnia last night and I wrote you a letter this morning and I was wondering If you wanna be pen pals... "I Wrote back immediatly, Yes. The conversation that started as an interview continued for the next few weeks in letters, emails, and eventually late night phone call. Soon Nathan was coming to New York to play a couple of shows , and, even though we have never met, Nathan was going to stay at my place in Brooklyn. The night before his arrival we talked on the phone and he promised no matter what happened-whether true love or complete indifference-we could always stay in touch.
However, neither occured. Rather, the weekend was full of alcohol, shows, interruptions, and not knowing how to feel. Upon meeting at his show in Hoboken, New Jersey, Nathan and I immediatly started drinking whiskey-and-cokes. I giggled nervously and talked incessantly as Nathan hid behind his long bands avoidingeye contact. However, once he was on stage, he was completely at ease. Stripped of his glasses, hair still in his face, Nathan blindly rocked his guitar as if playing by radar. He lunged over his instrument paying no attention to the audience whatsoever, which Beth had stirred up into a frenzy. All weekend I had a hard time reconciling this image of Nathan desirably indifferent on stage to the shy, sweet boy who slept in my bed.
The next morning after the Hoboken show, Nathan told me how he had never learned to play the guitar and had no idea about the name of any chords. As he pressed my arm trying to remember the word for "frets" I thought to myself "this would be great for my article, but do I mention the part that we're cuddling in the bed ?"
Even though neither of us were interested in talking about his band in our private time together, its presence proved omnipotent. It was, after all, why he was in New York. That night at his show in Brooklyn, I became extremely irritated waiting around while Nathan dealt with music industry schmoozing and fans. I knew he hated it, yet he had to do it. It was even worse when I took him to a friend's party afterwards. When someone I'm no longer friends with opened the doorand was suddenly excited to see me because he works in music publicity, and I brought Nathan of the Gossip, I almost turned around and left. Rather than bolting, I drank and danced my annoyance away, but deep down realized that my connection with Nathan could only reside in letters where I could divorce him from the spotlight and think of him as just another boy.
Teh evening after Nathan left, I wastaking a walk and trying to make sense of what had happened when I ran into an old acquaintance. "I heard some gossip about you,"he teased. The pun was, of course, intended.
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